In the field of this invention it is known that assembly of optical components in opto/electronic arrangements is done manually or with slow semi-automatic machines. One of the reasons for this is that there is no fast automatic way for aligning an active optical component to the electrical layout and to the laser light beam of the optical omponent.
From U.S. Pat. No. 6,044,549 there is known the manufacture of printed circuit board structures which include a substrate (i.e., a printed circuit board) and electronic components mounted upon the substrate for automatic assembly of the components onto the substrate; components need to be positioned substantially exactly in their required location to ensure the terminals on the components are aligned correctly with terminal pads on the substrate, to which they are to be soldered. For this purpose, registration datum positions are provided upon a substrate. The datum positions, or origins or zeros of reference, are referred to in the printed circuit board manufacturing industry as “fiducials”. The terminal pads, upon which the terminals of the components are to be placed, are exposed through windows of a solder mask covering the substrate surface. The fiducials are represented by metal pads which are also exposed through windows of the solder mask with clearance being provided between the pads and edges of the windows. Thus, the peripheral edges of the metal pads are identified by the control equipment to set the fiducial position. Fiducial position is in a desired and known location with reference to the terminal pads on the substrate, with which the terminals of the electronic components need to be aligned. However, slight misalignments are known to occur between the position of the solder mask on the one hand, and the fiducials and terminal pads on the printed circuit board on the other hand. This may not cause a problem with windows of large size, but some windows are only slightly larger than the terminal pads which are exposed within them. This occurs when there is small terminal spacing, such as for terminal connections of chip or ball grid arrays to substrate terminal pads, and the margin for misalignment error becomes much smaller. In such cases, it is not unknown for edges of windows to interfere and prevent correct terminal placement upon terminal pads, thereby providing defective printed circuit board structures.
From European Patent EP 0,798,576 there is known an optical element with alignment marking. The optical element, e.g. a laser, has a waveguide and an alignment marking allowing accurate optical adjustment of the optical element relative to a carrier. The alignment marking is etched in a waveguide layer packet in the same etching step as the waveguide. The alignment marking is masked by a dielectric layer to prevent it being covered by the cover layer for the waveguide, or alternatively the cover layer is etched from the surface of the alignment marking via a selective etching process. This known method provides passive alignment to an optical layer but no adjustment to mirror misalignment.
Additionally, these known approaches have the disadvantage of providing no alignment to optical layer and mirror.
A need therefore exists for aligning an optical component on a printed wiring board wherein the abovementioned disadvantage(s) may be alleviated.
It will be understood that, as used herein, the term “printed wiring board” or “PWB” is not limited to any particular technology and is intended to cover any board, layer or other substrate having formed thereon or therein interconnections for interconnecting components mounted to the substrate (for example, a printed circuit board).